Sato was on the verge of losing himself completely. He barely held on, forcing breath after shallow breath through the haze of pain. His ruined eye socket throbbed like a living thing, sending fresh spikes of agony with every heartbeat. His face and hands were slick with blood—some his, some the dead man's. The metallic taste coated his tongue.
Outside the tent, the voices grew louder. Shouts. Footsteps crunching in snow. Anger. Confusion.
Sato understood one thing with crystal clarity: if these people were anything like the one he had just killed, they would not hesitate. They would see the body, the blood, the knife in his hand—and they would end him without a second thought.
No questions. No mercy.
He staggered to his feet. His legs trembled violently, threatening to buckle. But he forced them to move.
He stumbled toward the far side of the tent, away from the entrance. The hides were thick, stitched crudely. With shaking fingers he gripped the knife—still warm from the man's throat—and sliced downward in one desperate motion.
The fabric tore with a wet rip.
Cold air slammed into him like a physical blow.
Sato pushed through the gap and tumbled out into the open.
The world beyond was white and merciless. Snow stretched in every direction, thick and unbroken. He was at the foot of towering mountains, jagged peaks half-hidden by swirling gray clouds. The wind howled, carrying razor-sharp flakes that stung his exposed skin.
His thin T-shirt and jeans offered no protection. The cold sank into him instantly, deep and vicious. The snow reached his knees, soaking through his torn sneakers in seconds. Every step burned. The blood on his face and hands began to freeze, forming stiff red crusts.
But he ran.
He had no choice.
Behind him, the shouts grew sharper—someone had discovered the body.
Sato pushed forward, legs pumping against the resistance of the snow. Each stride was agony. His missing eye socket felt like it was being gouged again and again by the freezing wind. The pain radiated down his skull, into his jaw, his neck. He tasted blood and frost on his lips.
He didn't know how long he ran. Minutes? Hours? Time dissolved in the white blur. His lungs burned. His muscles screamed. The cold clawed at his core, threatening to shut him down.
Finally, he risked a glance back.
The camp was farther away now, but still visible.
Tents—dozens of them—dotted the snowy slope. Ten, fifteen, maybe twenty. All roughly the same size, made of hides and fur, arranged in loose circles around larger central fires. Smoke rose in thin, gray columns.
It looked like an entire tribe.
A tribe whose home he had just violated. Whose man he had just killed.
Sato turned forward again and kept moving.
He had no destination. No plan. Only the blind instinct to put distance between himself and death.
The wind screamed in his ears. The snow pulled at his legs like hands trying to drag him under.
He didn't know how much longer he could keep going.
His mind was empty. Completely blank. No thoughts, no plans, no fear—just the raw, animal instinct to keep moving. To survive.
Sato took a few more stumbling steps through the knee-deep snow, then risked another glance back.
This time, what he saw froze him in place.
From somewhere beyond the ridge, a colossal white serpent erupted into view. It was immense—easily fifty meters long, its scales gleaming like fresh snow under the pale light. The creature moved with terrifying speed and purpose.
It struck the camp without warning.
The serpent's massive body crashed through the tents like they were made of paper. Hides and wooden frames shattered under its weight. It coiled and lashed, flattening everything in its path. People screamed—short, desperate cries cut off abruptly. Bodies were flung aside like broken dolls, some torn in half, others swallowed whole in a single gulp.
The tribe barely had time to react. Spears were raised, arrows loosed, but they bounced harmlessly off the serpent's armored hide. Within moments, the entire settlement was reduced to ruin. Smoke rose from crushed fire pits. Blood stained the snow in wide, dark patches.
Sato stood rooted, unable to move, unable to breathe. His body refused to obey. Terror had turned his limbs to stone.
Then the serpent paused.
It lifted its enormous head, tasting the air with a forked tongue the size of a man. Slowly, deliberately, it turned.
Its gaze swept across the frozen landscape… and locked onto him.
Two pairs of eyes met across the distance: one cold, reptilian, ancient; the other wide with primal horror.
For a heartbeat, the world narrowed to that single point of connection.
Then the serpent lunged.
It moved faster than anything that size should. Snow exploded in its wake as it shot forward like a living avalanche. Sato's body finally obeyed—barely. He threw himself to the right, tumbling into the snow just as the massive jaws snapped shut where he had stood.
He was too slow.
The serpent's mouth clamped down—not on his body, but on his left arm.
Teeth like daggers pierced flesh and bone. Sato felt the sickening crunch as his arm was severed just above the elbow. Pain exploded through him—white-hot, blinding, absolute.
Blood sprayed in an arc.
The serpent lifted him effortlessly, dangling him from its jaws like a ragdoll. Sato screamed, but the sound was swallowed by the wind. His body swung wildly as the creature thrashed its head from side to side, tossing him back and forth as if he were a toy.
The world blurred. Snow, sky, blood—everything spun in a violent carousel.
His severed arm hung by threads of skin and tendon. The stump poured blood in thick streams that froze almost instantly in the freezing air.
The serpent paused again, as if deciding whether to finish the meal.
Sato's vision tunneled. Pain and cold were merging into one overwhelming sensation. He couldn't think. Couldn't fight.
He was going to die.
Here.
Like this.
He was going to die.
Right here. In the snow. In the cold. As food for some monstrous beast. Without ever seeing his family one last time. Without saying sorry to Tedo. Without telling his father he tried.
*Fuck.*
*Fuck all of you.*
*I'm not dying like this.*
*Not like this.*
Sato screamed inside his skull, the words ripping through the fog of pain and panic.
"Never," he snarled out loud, voice raw and broken. "I won't die until I get home!"
His gaze dropped. The ground was far below—swaying violently as the serpent thrashed.
Then he remembered.
The knife.
It was still clutched in his right hand, fingers locked around the hilt in a death grip.
Without thought, without hesitation—pure survival instinct—Sato raised the blade.
He drove it upward with every ounce of strength left in his body, straight into the serpent's enormous eye.
The knife sank deep.
The creature's roar exploded—deafening, primal, vibrating through Sato's bones. Its jaws flew open in agony.
But the blade was stuck. Wedged in the eye socket. Sato's arm jerked with the motion, refusing to let go.
The serpent slammed its head down, grinding its face into the snow, trying to scrape him off like a parasite. It slid forward at terrifying speed, snow spraying in all directions.
Sato refused to release.
He yanked the knife free and stabbed again. Harder. Deeper. Again. And again.
Blood—thick, hot, steaming in the freezing air—poured over his face, his chest, his remaining arm.
"Die!" he screamed. "All of you—die!"
One final thrust.
With everything he had left—rage, pain, desperation—he plunged the knife through the ruined eye, past the socket, straight into the skull.
The serpent convulsed. A full-body shudder that nearly tore Sato apart.
Then—suddenly—the grip slackened.
The jaws opened wide.
Sato was flung free.
He tumbled through the air, spinning, crashing into the snow with bone-jarring force. He rolled, slid, finally coming to a stop half-buried in a drift.
The serpent let out one last guttural bellow, then collapsed. Its massive body hit the ground like an earthquake, snow exploding outward. It twitched once. Twice. Then went still.
Sato lay there, gasping, staring up at the gray sky.
Something felt… wrong.
He looked down at his left side.
His left arm was gone.
Severed cleanly just above the elbow.
The stump was a ragged mess of torn flesh and protruding bone. Blood poured out in thick pulses, steaming as it hit the snow.
He stared at the missing limb in numb shock.
No pain yet. Just cold. Deep, bone-chilling cold.
And the distant, muffled roar of the wind.
He had survived.
Barely.
And he was alone in the snow, bleeding out, one-eyed, one-armed, and freezing to death.
"At least… the damn snake is dead," Sato muttered to himself through gritted teeth, clutching the stump of his left arm so tightly his knuckles turned white. Pain radiated from the wound like fire, wave after wave, making his vision swim.
Tears streamed down his blood-streaked face. He couldn't stop them.
But his moment of grim relief lasted only seconds.
A low, rumbling growl echoed across the snow.
Sato lifted his head.
The serpent was still alive.
Slowly, agonizingly, the massive body rose. Scales scraped against ice. Blood dripped from the ruined eye socket in thick, steaming ropes. The creature's remaining eye—cold, furious—locked onto the small figure sitting in the snow.
It lunged again.
Sato had nothing left. No strength. No time. No way to move.
The serpent's jaws opened wide—wider than before—and snapped down.
One moment he was sitting in the snow.
The next—he was inside.
Darkness swallowed him whole. Hot, wet, suffocating darkness. The stench of bile and rotting meat assaulted him. The serpent's throat muscles contracted, pulling him deeper, squeezing the air from his lungs.
Outside, the creature raised its head and let out a triumphant roar that shook the mountains. It turned back toward the ruined camp, as if sensing more prey among the wreckage. It slithered forward, intent on finishing what it started.
But the serpent didn't get far.
A sudden, violent spasm ripped through its body.
Pain—deep, internal, unbearable—exploded from within.
The serpent thrashed. Its massive coils slammed into the snow again and again, sending shockwaves through the frozen ground. Each impact cracked ice and sent plumes of white powder into the air.
It rolled. It writhed. It screamed—a sound like tearing metal mixed with thunder.
Then, abruptly, it stopped.
The colossal body collapsed sideways, crashing into the snow with earth-shaking force. A final shudder ran through it.
And then… silence.
The serpent lay motionless, eyes glazed, tongue lolling. Its body began to freeze almost immediately in the relentless wind. Snow settled on its scales like a thin shroud.
It was dead.
The wind howled on. Snow continued to fall, soft and endless.
Then, from the serpent's midsection—near the softer underbelly—a single blade punched through the hide.
A trembling hand emerged, gripping the knife.
Blood and mucus dripped from the wound.
The cut widened.
Sato forced his way out.
He tumbled onto the snow, gasping, covered head to toe in gore—serpent blood, bile, his own blood. His clothes were torn, soaked, freezing to his skin. His severed arm stump was wrapped in shredded cloth he had torn from his shirt in blind panic.
He collapsed onto his back, staring up at the gray sky, knife still clutched in his right hand.
He had killed it.
From the inside.
He had cut his way out of a monster.
But the cold was already creeping deeper. His body shook uncontrollably. His vision blurred from blood loss, pain, and exhaustion.
The camp lay in ruins a short distance away—crushed tents, scattered bodies, dying fires.
No one was coming.
No one was left.
He was alone.
Truly alone.
He couldn't think anymore.
His thoughts had dissolved into a thick, gray fog. The world around him blurred at the edges, colors bleeding into darkness. His remaining eye struggled to focus—snow, sky, blood—all of it melting together into a cold, endless haze.
But one sensation cut through the numbness: he was still moving.
One foot in front of the other. Dragging. Stumbling. Falling. Getting up again.
He didn't know where he was going. He didn't know why.
Only that stopping meant death.
His body had become a machine on autopilot—survival stripped down to its most basic code. Crawl. Breathe. Don't die.
Then his legs gave out completely.
He collapsed. He was fainting. But at the last moment he heard some kind of voice.
Not in his ears.
Inside his skull.
Clear. Cold. Mechanical.
[System Unlocked]...